Finally, the forest! Past the port of Miritituba, the Transamazonian changes. Finish pastures. For hundreds of miles, it’s just a brown dirt track, cutting through the jungle. The trees, grandiose, imposing skyscrapers of lianas and foliage, form on either side an impassable wall of vegetation. After a week-long journey through cattle breeding areas, a shiver of pleasure runs through us: we are finally in the heart of the jungle.
The 4 × 4 progresses somehow on the bumpy road, dotted with tricky cavities, with endless climbs and descents, like a “roller coaster”. ” It rained last night “, remarks our driver, Gabriel. The advantage? Much less dust. Disadvantage ? The risk of getting bogged down. A formidable danger among all: in six or seven hours, we will only cross half a dozen cars. In a bush stands a rusty sign: ” Not to exceed “. Travel irony…
In reality, we are not alone at all. From time to time, you have to slow down, let a small black cat or a family of monkeys pass, observe the flight of a couple of blue macaws in the distance, or the escape of a coral snake… In this region, the Trans-Amazonian crosses a national park delimited in 1974, during the construction of the road. The place is famous for its hundreds of species of birds and its thousands of insects of incredible proportions. Some butterflies and beetles exceed 30 centimeters.
Glitter ribbon
At the corner of a bend, you can sometimes make out, on the north side, an azure ribbon shimmering in the sun. Tapajos is often considered the most beautiful and amiable of rios from Amazonia. A turquoise jewel, 850 kilometers long, for a basin as vast as Spain and a flow twice as high as all the French rivers combined. The refuge, above all, of an unparalleled biodiversity. Fishermen regularly cross paths with large manatees (aka the “beef fish”) and pink pointy-beaked dolphins.
But this purity is only appearance. As we pass one by one the many streams, these small tributaries of the mighty Tapajos, the smile gives way to concern. On the first kilometers, we discover these clear, crystalline streams. Then, little by little, the same end up becoming whitish, greasy, milky. “The very best!” » (“hypersale”), indignant Gabriel. The streams surroundings are polluted, toxic, poisoned, like the veins of a sick, dying body. The sign that we have just entered hostile territory: that of illegal miners, prospectors.
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